Just Say No to Texts that Say "Hey"

The state of the text message is in despair. Every day, millions of people receive vague, misguided, and irresponsible texts. These texts can lead to frustration and anger in the recipient, as well as unjustified analysis, hair-pulling, and general confusion. Sometimes, they can even cause the recipient to lash out against their phone. While a frightening majority of daily texts fit this bill, there’s really only one message that truly requires our intervention on a global scale.

“Hey”.

One might think that having nearly grown up with text messages, we’d have gotten the hang of what we’re supposed to be doing by now. That the last decade of having our cell phones never more than an arm’s length away would have fostered a deep understanding. One would think we’d have mapped the intricacies of this second language by now.

Not so.

There are many among us – you know ’em, you might even love ’em – who believe the impossibly vague “hey” to be an acceptable catalyst for conversation. Leaving the rest of us to wonder, 1) “Is this person still in middle school?” or 2) “Is s/he still recovering from the late -90’s/early 00’s mindset of forced brevity, when cell towers threatened a lost connection at any given moment?”. Whatever the cause, there is no excuse for these types of “messages”. I know 13-year-old’s who can compose texts better than most of the stuff passing through my inbox on a daily basis. Crap, even a burp would be better than “hey”. Because I’ll at least have something to say about that.

People were texting interesting things as far back as 2008.

There’s been a lot of articles written over the past few years on how text messages factor into modern-day dating and relationships. Experts have weighed in to give possible interpretations of commonly used text messages which figure in factors such as the time of day or night the message is sent, and inclusion of emoticons or punctuation.

But no one should need an expert’s opinion to figure out that anyone who decides to initiate communication with “Hey” (also: “hi, “Hello”, or “Hey!”) does not only disqualify themselves from warranting your response, they’ve disqualified themselves from being considered an impressive, interesting, or creative person. That is, the kind of person that people often hope to date.

I vote for full, intensive rehabilitation courses for these textual offenders. And if they’re found to be violating their probation, they’ll be excommunicated to an island of other “Hey” texters. We’ll see how they survive when there is nobody around to pull the plug when the conversation inevitably starts to loop: